In any office, it is reasonable to expect that employee efficiency and productivity should improve over time. Even if your productivity is already impressive, there are always options for further streamlining workflows. Surprisingly, video content can go a long way toward fostering improved worker productivity. The keys to this are collaboration and communication: two things that video excels at. In the past, productivity was all about staying in your cubicle and working quietly. But today, collaborative, team-centric environments are proving themselves to be more productive, innovative, and effective than ever before. In the spirit of today’s open office atmospheres, video is revolutionizing the way people work.
How Video Content Enhances Productivity
Enterprise solutions for video production and live webcasting can directly affect your employees’ level of engagement, and with it, help streamline employee productivity and efficiency. Since the 1980s and ‘90s, when computers were just beginning to make their way into American office buildings, technology has progressed exponentially. And yet, business plans and expectations of employees haven’t always kept pace. Sticking to outdated norms in an ever-changing technology-driven world is anything but useful.
Video enhances connection between employees, especially as remote work is quickly becoming the norm. For people who work remotely from home offices and coffee shops, or in offices that use a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) approach to minimize overhead, video is a great tool for keeping colleagues connected. As communication becomes more open and employees are no longer limited by the need to meet face-to-face during office hours, productivity increases. For companies in a wide range of industries, there’s great value in the ability to produce and implement video content on a secured platform.
One example is that old 20th-century standby: the training video. Once dominated by dusty old projector reels, modern internet video has breathed new life into this tool and restored its relevance. When new hires sign on, you don’t need another worker to interrupt his or her own busy day to provide orientation and training. Instead, a professional, engaging training video can walk them through everything they need to know to do their job. This enhanced onboarding process allows you and the rest of your staff to engage in your normal workflow, ensuring that deadlines are met.
Internal video communications can also help ensure that team members stay on the same page, regardless of their individual schedules. Imagine that three different departments are separately involved in a project. Instead of playing phone tag to get updates on other departments’ contributions, employees can upload and send out video updates on a secured media platform.
Video Communication: The World is Your Office
Video livestreaming also provides a communication tool that can actually help free workers from the confines of an office building. Telecommuting is moving from a rare situation to a common social norm, and the change is happening faster than you might assume. Remote work has some very real benefits for companies, which has contributed to its growing acceptance and popularity.
- It increases productivity. You’d think that being at home with so many distractions would inhibit productivity, but this actually isn’t the case. Working in a remote environment can actually help employees get more work done. Home offices can often be quieter than a busy floor of cubicles, without annoying water cooler gossip or that guy in the next cubicle over with the 90-decibel bag of Sun Chips. It also frees workers from worrying about commuting back and forth, allowing them more time in the day to get things done.
- It drives efficiency. Remote workers report that telecommuting allows them to get more work done in less time.
- It lowers stress. In one study, 82% of remote workers reported subjectively lower psychological stress levels, along with higher morale and lower absenteeism.
- It reduces employee turnover. Remote work options can lower attrition rates by up to 50%.
- Lower real estate costs. When you don’t need to worry about having enough room to house all of your employees in offices and cubicles, overhead costs go down.
- Better engagement. Remote workers are often more engaged with their colleagues rather than less.
Video chat and livestreaming keep the flow of communication open and engaged with remote workers, no matter where they workers are located. There’s a significant value in face-to-face communication as opposed to voice calls or emails. Video live streaming can make it possible to reach out and connect with your remote team, fostering a stronger sense of connectedness and a more robust interpersonal professional relationship.
Empowered by video, the entire world can suddenly transform into an office. There’s little need for people to physically work in the same building. Instead, remote collaboration tools, cloud storage, and video communication can keep people connected across vast global distances.
Video Content Helps Foster Employee Engagement
Encouraging an open, trusting, and collaborative atmosphere can go a long way toward improving worker productivity. Strict rules and too much micromanagement only lead to stress and hostility toward the company. Employees under these conditions don’t work optimally. However, when you give them just a little more freedom and trust, tensions lessen and more work gets done.
Your training videos can be carefully crafted to reinforce the collaborative atmosphere you’re trying to create. Old training videos can often look dated and can be a source of mockery from your staff. They also aren’t very engaging. Today’s internal videos are fun and lighthearted, yet they are incredibly effective at conveying important information. Incorporating some entertainment and humor into your training videos helps you and your new hires get off on the right foot.
Fresh Content Whenever You Need It
Prior to cheap digital cameras, the Internet, YouTube, and other modern conveniences, video was expensive. The production and distribution costs of internal training videos often meant that it was rare that the company would update the ones they already had. But today, anyone can make a decent-looking video quickly and inexpensively. In just a few minutes, a company can create or update a video to convey important, up-to-date information.
Editing is no longer a complex and expensive process, either. There are plenty of software programs available that make it easy to transform your raw footage into an end product that looks and feels professional. With little more than a smartphone camera and a software program, video is within reach for even the most budget-conscious startups.
Videos don’t have to be limited to a “talking head” format. Instead, you can seamlessly incorporate graphs, charts, tables, and other content for a truly multimedia approach. Whether it’s shared live, or archived for later viewing on demand, video content is cheap, versatile, and easy to mold into a vision that makes sense for your company.
It’s also helpful for advertising and marketing. You don’t need a massive budget to make an effective promotional video. Many affordable tools are impressively powerful in the right hands, and even if you’re low on expendable funds, you can make and publish videos that impress your clientele.
On-Demand Certification Training
Technology has made it easier than ever for companies to train their employees to receive and maintain the proper certifications. Twenty years ago, this could be difficult or prohibitively expensive. But today, employees can train remotely using online resources, then test for their certification — a process that can take as little as a couple of days. Video training can be leveraged to prepare your employees for certification tests, helping you provide professional training and support that expands their skill sets and increases their value to your company.
Strengthening Professional Relationships
A poor or weak relationship with a boss or manager is a major factor that contributes to employee turnover. Stronger professional relationships can improve employee retention, but the first step is personal interaction. Video streaming allows managers to communicate with employees from anywhere, simulating a face-to-face interaction even if they can’t physically be in the same room together. This can also extend to training videos, which can introduce the new hire more personally to his or her new team. Video conferencing and live streaming can remove some of the perceived interpersonal distance between higher-level management and staff, fostering a more connected work environment where employees feel valued and appreciated.
The Power of Enterprise Video
Video content isn’t just for marketing and advertising. Enterprise video platforms can empower you and your team to get connected, amp up your productivity, and collaborate seamlessly. Video can be a vital communication platform, like using live streaming for meetings to allow virtual face-to-face interaction between people who are literally a world apart. It can also be a great medium for presenting on-boarding and training materials, getting new hires ready to jump in head first without interrupting other employees’ workflows. In an increasingly connected global world, video will continue to grow in importance as a communication, collaboration, and instructional tool.
Incorporating video and enhancing your current enterprise technology is easy if you have the right partner! Pulatech can help you integrate video content into your existing organizational systems and allow you to harness the power of video for your business. From marketing material to corporate content, employee training to entertainment, let PulaTech help you easily get your video up and running. Contact us to get started!